


where you end (and my universe begins)

by centaurii



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Lance (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, M/M, Voltron Positivity Exchange, hunk is just there for the ride
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-26 04:51:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13850460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/centaurii/pseuds/centaurii
Summary: storge: love that slowly develops from friendship, based on similarity





	where you end (and my universe begins)

**Author's Note:**

> for [ dork-sen ](http://dork-sen.tumblr.com)

It doesn’t seem like it at first, but he remembers the stories his sister would tell him when she first met her boyfriend. Lance was too young to understand then that maybe Maria was a bit too naive. To him, love was the bright flash of the sun in the mirror of a moving truck two houses down. He hadn’t even known the house was for sale until later that evening.

Then he met them—the new couple.

And soon after, he met _him_ : his first love.

 

-

 

Hunk isn’t like his siblings. He doesn’t purposely lock the bathroom door when Lance announces that he has to pee, or stuff wet sand in his shoes when they’re at the beach. He doesn’t steal Lance’s square of his abuela’s homemade brownies the moment his attention is elsewhere. He doesn’t body slam him against the living room floor for the remote, or ruffle his hair when his dad finishes giving him a haircut.

It’s July fifth, when Lance starts taking down the decorations from the block party his family hosted that year. Everyone was welcome, and there was a huge turn out. Constant jumbles of foreign words, and a heavily accented response in return. He strains, reaching for a couple of streamers at the front gate, wondering why the hell they were so high. He almost trips when he pushes over to the very tip, barely grazing the shiny gleam of red when he’s caught by hand around his waist.

Lance is positioned very awkward with his back facing his savior, and quickly turns to meet their eyes. Dark brown eyes that are filled with worry, and suddenly Lance feels guilty.

“Uh, thanks,” Lance murmurs.

Hunk looks severely unimpressed, but Lance notes the box on the ground beside him. He follows Lance’s eyes, and picks it up, pushing it against his chest.

“My mom says you like sweet stuff, so I made you some.”

“Some?”

“Sweet stuff!”

“Oh.” Lance’s ears burn, and his freshly cut hair can’t hide the truth. “My birthday isn’t until, like, three weeks from now.”

“Mhm! I know.”

Hunk is sweet, kind, and gives brownies to him _just because_.

  


-

  


(Lance is eleven, three weeks later, when Hunk and his mother bake him a cake for his birthday.)

  


-

  


Lance likes listening to the ocean.

He takes a conch shell and brings it to his ear every couple days. It’s nice, and it makes him feel warm in the burning heat of summer weather. He used to be able to lie for hours in the sand, stabbing the back of his head with seashells and abandoned plastic shovels. He’d noticed fewer of those incidents when they moved. The sand he used to roll around in was usually beige and covered in seaweed most days.

Lance doesn’t acknowledge the brown dirt in his backyard for weeks.

His mother scolds him when he twists his body through the hills of ants and grasshoppers in the far corner near her garden. She’s made an effort to plant a few flowers around the shrubs. Red, pink, and blue litter the entire landscape by the time his sister leaves for college. He feels little bad being the only one of five children still living with her and his father. Still kicking around, and dragging a mix of fertilizer and leaves into the hallway when he finishes the midday, makeshift, obstacle course runthrough.

Blissful ignorance comes to mind. Only it’s not, because instead of sand and miles of open blends in the blue of the ocean, he sees an old wired fence crowded with vines.

Lance persists.

He _resists_.

(The only part about this circumstance that’s worth the struggle is his friendship with Hunk.

They’ve formed a bond that Lance has dreamed of for the number of years Hunk has lived on his street. One so strong that Lance could give him hugs covered in mud and insects, and he’d only be a little upset.

To Hunk that’d probably be the biggest offense, but Lance has never seen him angry. Only slightly agitated when Lance is doing something dumb—jumping from the roof to the top of a dirt pile—or when he’s cooking and he forgets to preheat the oven. Or the time Lance left a fork in the microwave.

That last bit wasn’t his fault.

(He’d used plastic spoons most of his life.)

It’s much easier to ignore his longing when there are others to distract him. In school, he makes friends. Lots, and lots, and _lots_ of them because who wants to go anywhere alone?

Lance has tried everything to at the very least make them stay. Fourteen year olds have the attention span of dogs, his father says. He’s tried to recreate the brownies the boy down the street made for him, grinding his teeth when he can’t remember exactly how they taste. He tried throwing a party, but the only people who showed up were Hunk and his grandfather.

Lance knows he can’t be friends with everyone. He knows he’s not putting his heart into it, but he doesn’t understand why. Forming bonds came so naturally to him, his friendship with Hunk developed naturally. So why was it so _hard_ now, when he actively sought for new people?

 

-

 

“ _Damn_ ,” Lance says, turning the faucet in the sink to wash his face.

“Is everything okay, Lance?” His father asks, eye filled with concern.

Lance nods, snatching a towel from the rack near the shower curtains, drying his face. He looks down at the towel, it’s stained with a mix of green and brown, and then back up to a now somber smile.

_Of course not._

 

-

 

Hunk hasn’t spoken to Lance in weeks. He heard that his family was moving again since his mother travels for business. He feels guilt grasp and churn his stomach at the thought.

He vividly remembers the day they first spoke to each other.

_Hunk’s shirt was littered in chocolate batter, and his face was equally covered in dry strawberry icing. Lance’s birthday was a month away, and his brother was in town. His mother pushed him out the door with a wrapped plate of sugar cookies, to invite the Garrett family over for dinner as a way to break the ice and ask for help with the party._

_Hunk answers the door with the widest smile on his lips. It doesn’t match the anxiousness of his stance, or the wavering voice that greets him._

_He shoves the cookies through the door and grins wide._

It’s blurry after that.

(Lance hasn’t spoken to Hunk in weeks, but Hunk has called. He’s come over, and attempts daily to talk to him when class is over, but Lance has steadily ignored him.

He believes in the safety of numbers, but has yet to grasp which situations this can be applied too.)

When Hunk’s fifteenth birthday approaches, a series of thunderstorms begin. Lance gets caught in the storm, and knocks on Hunk’s front door.

No one answers.

  


-

  


When Lance is accepted to Galaxy Garrison, his eyes go wide at the acceptance letter in his hands. He’s quaking in his boots at the thought of meeting others that want to follow the same path to his dream. It’s frightening—the prospect and the idea of flying high to worlds unknown.

(Space is dark and cold.

It’s empty, yet so full.)

“You got in?” A pair of dark eyes gleam.

Lance whips his head around.

“Uh, yeah,” He replies, “I did.”

“Good.”

“How about you?”

“Yeah. I was going to tell you, but—” Hunk scratches the back of his head, removing his bandana. “—I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Oh,” It’s been nearly two months, and all he can come up with is ‘oh’.

“I’m, uh, glad I don’t have to do this alone. I kind of hoped we started talking again soon.”

“Yeah.” The stars are blocked by the numerous streetlights, but Lance doesn’t mind. He jumps from his seat near the door, and pass Hunk to climb up the metal gate that still stands. He’s shaky, and it wobbles under him, but he keeps going until his stomach hit the pointy tips.

“I want to go up there—”

One of Lance’s feet slips from the spot that keeps his body stable. He almost falls.

Almost.

“Space isn’t my favorite thing, but I want that too.” Hunk gently sets him down, reaching out to wipe a tear from Lance’s eye with his thumb, but is stopped before doing so.

“I want to go up there _with_ you.”

(Those hazel eyes twinkles brighter than he’s ever seen.)

“ _Oh_.”

  
  


-

  
  


It’s _excellerating_. Giant-metal-alien-mech lions.

Actual—real fucking aliens.

Literal magic, in the midst of an intergalactic imbalance of power.

(Lance persists when the day dims low. Hunk is there, of course, with a mouth full of goo and a hand in his.)

 

The underlying fever reaches inwards, seeking the blindness of tomorrow.

  


**Author's Note:**

> ahhh, this is for the fic exchange!! 
> 
> let's spread positivity and love for this show with more events like these! hope you enjoyed it!


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